The coming European convention is a great hope for connection and for being able to sense the revelation of the Creator in the connection among us, the revelation of the spiritual world. First, the Reforming Light that operates on us will connect us and we will feel the adhesion among us, which we attain in order to bring contentment to the Creator. Then according to the equivalence of form, it will be revealed in us and we will feel that “Israel (those who yearn for the Torah), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator, are one.”

We yearn for the union of all the souls into one soul that is filled with the upper Light, to feel it, to discover it and to live in it, first by ourselves because we already have the desire for it, and then to help the whole world attain it. Eventually everything that is revealed in our world—all the suffering, the crises and the troubles—are nothing more than forces that hasten the development of humanity towards this perfect state.

Therefore, when we yearn for this perfect state, we want to achieve two goals: love of the Creator and love of humanity. We want to bestow all the goodness that we achieve by our work and our attainment on both humanity and the Creator. After all, we are in the middle, between them, like the middle third of Tifferet that has nothing and doesn’t want anything for itself—Hafetz Hesed. We only enjoy bringing pleasure to humanity and through it, through all this general soul, to the Creator.

This is the vessel we have to prepare. This is the state we have to reach. Therefore, while reading The Zohar, we want to approach it. Let’s think about it!

If a person imagines the next state he wants to reach, it is already a prayer. After all, I don’t know where the Creator is, how to raise a request to Him, MAN, who it goes through, what this MAN actually is, or what desires it is. That’s the way it is in our lives: If we want something, we imagine that we already have it, and yearn for this imaginary picture where we are in the desired state.

They say that if you want to be slim—don’t diet, don’t listen to all kinds of advice, and don’t take diet pills and exercise, etc. nothing will help. Only constantly think that you are already slim. Then you will see that you don’t feel hungry any more and you will really lose weight.

It is really so, and it is the same with everything: You must imagine that you are already in the future state and you will really advance towards it. The yearning that is aimed at the goal will bring you there.

It is the same with us. So let’s imagine that we are really in the good state. There is no need to evoke any deficiencies, troubles, and worries, but only to yearn for this whole state, and try as hard as we can to help ourselves to actually reach that.
[73047]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, The Zohar

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend-1,” (Starting with: “Hence, we should say”) 
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Correction of the Lower World from the Upper World,” Item 312, Lesson 87
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 7, “Ohr Pnimi,” (Starting with: “Thus the Panim and Achoraim found in the Kelim of Malchut“), Item 23, Lesson 10
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 120, Lesson 53
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Question: What is the true standard of measuring the love for friends? What is the correct definition of a friend?

Answer: A person’s true check of the degree of love for friends is his understanding that he will not be able to reach the most important goal in his life without our uniting into one whole, and while within this whole, we also reveal the Creator.

It turns out that I, my friends, and the Creator obtain equal importance for me. They become one (1) with relation to everything else which I consider zero (0). The closer I approach such a form, the greater is the degree of my love.

A friend is my closest part of the soul together with which I am building a system in which the unity will be revealed. This is a cogwheel existing next to me. I have to grasp it in order to spin together according to the desire of the Upper One.

It turns out that we already create a system. I need just one friend with whom we spin together when we annul our ego, we enter into the clutch with our cogs, but this grip is realized according to the desire of the upper force.

We annul ourselves and as a result we enter into connection. We do this precisely to annul ourselves before the prior request from Above and allow the Upper One to spin us. We make an agreement with one another that we connect for the sake of sensing the order of the Creator who begins to spin us. Here all three factors are necessary.
[70072]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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People who are not engaged in spiritual work took a different Torah, which one can understand, carry out, demand rewards, even arrange exams, and count the memorized pages. And a person who aspires to spiritual development is always facing the unknown, impossible, contrary to his will and reason, and thus he needs faith, that is, the force of bestowal, which is higher than the force of reception.

This is called faith above reason. Thus, spiritual advancement happens, and it is said: “The opinion of the Torah is opposite to the opinion of the landlords.”

This is the path for everyone who has found the “Book.” But there are many friends who wander in the desert, suffering from their unhappy existence, and who would like to improve their conditions. They do not seek spiritual attainment and ascent to the next higher degree, but merely want to improve their lives on the degree where they are now. And they should be treated as the Rambam writes: “Women, slaves, children, and old people are taught gradually, until they gain wisdom.”

They will also advance, and some day, a spark, which is now hidden deep inside, will break through. And in the meantime, they should be taught to the extent of their desire, for the sake of the goals that they understand before they come closer.

They will think that they act to fulfill their egoism. But since we teach them, and the concealed Light that Reforms passes through us to them, wisdom will gradually come to them, and slowly secrets will be revealed to them. In this way, the whole humanity will advance towards the goal.
[73085]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, “The Last Generation”

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Support in the Torah in the Work,” (To: “In that state one says”)
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Correction of the Lower World from the Upper World,” Item 311, Lesson 86
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 7, Item 23, Lesson 9
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 115, Lesson 52
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Let’s imagine that there is a gate that opens and closes automatically when a person comes near. This gate checks a person’s deficiency, and if it isn’t enough, he is not allowed to enter.

Everything is ready for the meal and the host is waiting for the guests. But He is waiting for them according to their desire to unite, only if they want to unite with Him. This is checked according to their readiness to connect among each other, so that the connection will really be with the intention of in order to bestow.

If you have the true yearning and deficiency, you will be allowed to enter. Here there can be two levels. The first is when a person succeeds, but hasn’t developed enough appetite yet, enough desire for the meal, which means a desire and a yearning to enjoy bestowing upon the Creator.

The guest himself stops himself from receiving anything because he has restricted himself. First we have to reach the height of that guest who is ashamed to receive the meal for free from the host. He is ready to receive it if he can turn his shame into honor, and he will do that for the host. Then he uses all his desires and attributes happily, because he can bestow.

Thus, the guest happily discovers that he has a great appetite, together with the need to use it correctly: to enjoy the refreshments in order to cause the host pleasure.

If a person advances correctly and constantly looks for support for that, he needs the Reforming Light. He begins to think: How is it possible to evoke the Light? In what way? It is only by the prayer of many, together with the friends. This is how they advance.

But on every step of the way there are problems. The additional desire to receive that should be revealed at every new level requires correction. On every level there is a need for correction, because it isn’t some minor change of the desire, but an ascent to a new degree. Every minor change requires the transcendence of all the ten levels of development, ten whole Sefirot.

So a person should repeat all the actions that he performed on the previous level. If in the meantime he doesn’t feel any meaningful difference between the levels, then he thinks that he is repeating the same states. And how long can you? He is tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.

He wants to see some progress, even if there is some retreat. Like in a spinning wheel, he still wants to feel movement forward. If he doesn’t see it, it is a problem.

It may be that he doesn’t see the advancement inside him, but he sees it in others and should be happy about it. But his corrupt ego doesn’t let him rejoice for the success of others. He is not free of his self interest yet.

He is covered by a shadow, and he ceases to feel any advancement. Under such conditions, he loses his appetite for the meal. He suddenly loses his power and begins to criticize all his previous accounts, and to see them as not serious and unrealistic.

With regard to the reality he is in, the reality of this world, it all seems as not serious enough, and not solid enough. Other people deal with things that are understandable, that bring real profit that you can actually feel and deposit in the bank; you can bring the daily wages to the family in the evening and can take pride in the success.

But here there is nothing, everything disappears, like water seeping through the sand! And there is no one you can blame. This is called a shadow.

Therefore, many heroes fall in this battle. We often hear of such cases in different groups. On the one hand, we should feel sorry for these people, just as about someone who dies, because we feel sorry that they died. But on the other hand, in the future they will join the correction, because “the remote will not be rejected,” and “everything returns to its root.”

It doesn’t depend on us. The only thing we can do is to try and grow stronger, build the right supporters and the right “railing” that will support us, and post “policemen and guards.” If we understand that the shadow comes so that we will become stronger, because only in the concealment is it possible to discover the additional desire necessary for the revelation—then we understand that there is no choice and that we must go on.
[72997]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/12, Shamati #8

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A group should set a good example for everyone. It is playing what we would like to be, like a child who plays being a grown-up because he dreams of being a grown-up.

In our everyday life, when we advance instinctively by evolution, nature forces us to advance by pushing us from behind by sufferings and by luring us forward with pleasures, by showing us examples from the environment, by evoking our pride, by evoking our passion, our desire to control and other pleasures, making us yearn to grow and achieve more.

This is how nature advances on the levels of the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animate, but man who is the most developed creature on earth advances more than all the other levels. It isn’t enough for him to be born and to acquire the form of a grown-up in a couple of weeks like a beast does. He has to take on a new form in every generation. Nature takes care of that and advances him.

But when he has to grow, as a human being, in a form that is already different from the levels of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate, everything becomes different. We don’t see this difference, because we relate to the human body as to a beastly body; we pay attention to the friend’s face, to the way he behaves in the corporeal world, and to his character. We don’t understand that his spiritual component is totally detached from the body and doesn’t belong to it.

We need this body in order to attain spirituality with it, to attain attributes through it that enable us to connect with the friends internally. But actually, the spiritual form is totally different from the corporeal form, like two different levels. Just as in our world there is an absolute difference between an inanimate stone, the vegetative, and the animate, the human level is also cut by a border called the Machsom, which separates us from the animate level. We can rise to the human level only by urges that we design ourselves. These urges are called: the importance of the spiritual goal, which is the opposite from our corporeal level.

This oppositeness actually exists between all the levels of the inanimate, vegetative and animate. We must understand that in the process of evolution it is impossible to remain in the present state. So you begin to consolidate your powers in order to exit your current state and to move on to the next state, which is more advanced.

The same thing happens in our development. Nature brings us to this point when we feel the need for spiritual development. When we feel the point in the heart inside us, we come to the group. But afterwards we have to find the powers for our development by ourselves.
[70085]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: The social protest organizers in Israel are planning to start a new wave of protest in the summer, which will be much stronger than the previous one. The profit the elites are making at our expense is really annoying.

Answer: This is true, but where is the solution? The protesters have no solution. All of this has been done before, and we know what the results were. As long as they continue to operate in the egoistic system, such attempts only make the situation worse.

Given the current circumstances, it’s impossible to fulfill the demands of the protesters. There is the army, there are the health and the education systems, there are sectors that receive state funding, and in the framework of the democratic consensus there isn’t much room for games. There are laws in this country.

“What laws!” Let’s take several billion shekels and throw them from one place to another,” you scream. The problem is that everyone has an opinion of his own. We shout slogans in the streets, put up signs, but you can’t change the political system, the national budget.

“We should take money from those people!” you are saying. But how? After all, there are laws and the legislators sit in the parliament. So go into politics or at least into lobbying and start changing things. But when you start a revolution, you are destroying what’s there already and things become even worse. No revolution will ever lead to any good as long as we are in the same egoistic system. There are endless examples of that: Cuba, Russia, Korea, and more.

You are destroying the system that more or less reflects the structure of society. Despite the ego, despite the lies and deception, the voters and the elected match one another. Social pressure may bring down the price of gas by ten agorot, but you won’t actually be able to really change anything here.

Even if you bring millions out to the streets, it won’t help. The only real possible outcome may be the destruction of the state. This is actually what they want, and this can be achieved, but not the correction. Correction is possible only by the Light that Reforms. Magnates and revolutionaries have nothing to do with it.

I am against this approach because it lacks any kind of order. Do you want to change the situation? Go into politics. Do you want to change things? Go to the parliament and change the laws. But instead, you are suggesting to accumulate power and to destroy what already exists. This isn’t building, and it has never led to anything good anywhere.

Mass protests won’t help in any way. They will only cost the state billions, and the masses that demand those billions will be the ones who will have to pay for them, while the leaders will “ride the wave” and find their place in the parliament. Ultimately, it is nothing more than a political game.

Question: But in the meantime people are suffering. How can we help them?

Answer: Imagine Baal HaSulam who saw what was going on during World War II. What was he able to do?

You are asking: Why aren’t we doing anything when people are suffering? The body is suffering. We don’t understand this calculation, and there is no way we can ease this suffering. On the contrary, such attempts only prolong the suffering.

We are trying to “draw” people to prolonged pain instead of a disaster, but nothing more than that. A person must come to the recognition of evil.

On one hand, these protests do hasten the development in some way, but on the other, this hastening is not by the Light that Reforms, and so it costs us dearly. It will bring about many troubles and will weaken our state and society.

We have to do our work. Only unity and connection can help us because they correspond to the Light and draw it. Only as a result of that will we bring about changes for the better.

No other means will help any state. The attempts to solve the problems at the expense of others are worthless. A few cosmetic changes can be made, but on the whole, all the governments are the same. They all speak about the good and don’t mention the bad, and no one will change anything, except for the impression they make on the public. After all, they are all puppets, and as it says: “The hearts of ministers and kings are in the Creator’s hands.”

We have to draw the Light that Reforms. Only the Light can bring about any changes. By the unity among us we will continue to develop. Therefore we say to people that mutual guarantee is the solution to all our problems.
[71523] 
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/2012, The Zohar 

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Taking into consideration that all creation is the desire to receive pleasure, it doesn’t seem realistic that we can separate ourselves from our egos. But this separation happens only within our calculation when we evaluate how much we “owe” to the ego, how much we need it since without the ego, we are unable to make any action or generate a single thought.

Then the Light that Reforms brings us into a state of real freedom. Only the Light can do it because it adds to man’s desire to receive pleasure the property of bestowal, as if making a new alloy. It’s similar to the laws of valence or creation of new chemical elements. By adding or removing electrons, we produce a new substance. This is the outcome of spiritual laws in our material world.

The property of bestowal descends to a person and takes control over his desire to receive pleasure because it contains the Root. The entire difference between the state of “Lishma” (bestowal) and the preceding state of “Lo Lishma” is not in the presence of the property of bestowal itself, but in our attaining it.

The presence of the property of bestowal doesn’t mean a thing because we still can use it egoistically, meaning “Lo Lishma”! However, when we attain the Root, which is included into the property of bestowal and it comes from Keter rather than Bina, it forces our egoistic desire to surrender. Our ego “understands” that it holds a secondary place, whereas the first place (the desire to bestow) precedes it.

Therefore, our egoism capitulates, thus making us ready to work “Lishma.” Now we acquire energy and fuel to perform actions for the sake of the source of bestowal, rather than for our ego. The desire to receive pleasure subdues—Malchut bows since it “senses” the presence of Keter, the Root that acts within Bina.

Afterwards, we need to enhance this state and raise Malchut as high as possible so that it grows within us. It allows us to get to know Keter better, although we won’t get connected to Him; rather we get acquainted with His core property included within the property of bestowal that clothes itself in us (into our desire to receive pleasure since the matter of creation never disappears).

When a person rises above his desire to receive pleasure and attains the root and the property of bestowal, he is filled with the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) and thus acquires the property of Bina. At this point, he can transition to the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) and to receive for the sake of bestowal, although it is a special work we cannot picture as of yet.

A state of “Lishma” begins at the moment a person becomes able to act for the sake of adhesion with bestowal while still retaining the desire to receive pleasure. He senses the power of the Creator, His properties, and his own source within the Creator, rather than in his desire to receive pleasure.

At this stage, a person ceases to be a faithful ally and a slave of his ego with which he used to be so connected that he didn’t separate himself from it and considered it to be his authentic “self.” Now, he disconnects from it and changes his master consciously, voluntarily, and having worked hard to achieve this state.
[72698]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson  3/14/2012, Shamati #20

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From a lesson of Rabash: In a place where spirituality isn’t important enough, the shells have a hold. For example, if a person intended to get up for the lesson in the morning, but thoughts and calculations come to his mind: “Why should I get up? What will I learn? What is the point in that?”

The moment spirituality doesn’t seem important, such thoughts immediately come up and tie a person with thick ropes to the bed so that he won’t be able to get up…therefore, we need the accompanying force that will not allow us to fall.”

What all the groups and in fact every person in one way or another lack is the accompanying force. Otherwise we fall one by one, as it says: “A thousand walk into the classroom and one comes out a teacher.” This means that 999 fall.

It may well be that they don’t actually fall physically, but they are weakened internally and are ready to “carry on” this way without attaining the goal of creation, the goal of life. They don’t argue that it is necessary to find an answer to the question “what is the meaning of my life,” but they’ve grown old and they don’t feel they have the strength to do so. This is all because they have not built supporters for themselves, a “railing” that will support them and will help them rise and not let them fall. This is very important.

It’s like making a treaty of mutual help,  a commitment to the relationships between the friends, between the groups. Therefore, it is so important to know what is happening in every group and to help each other.

It is like it says: “There is no prophet in his own town,” and friends from other groups can sometimes help a person and influence him more than those who are next to him. He can suspect that his close friends have some self-interest and can find blame with their egoistic intentions. But he doesn’t feel that way about the other groups. He sees that people from other places begin to speak about him and show him how important he is to them, and on the other hand, he understands that he must correct something inside himself, like it says: “You should post judges and policemen at all your gates.”

It is very important. Usually after every collective ascent several people fall, because after an ascent there is always the hardening of the heart. We should be on guard!
[72991]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/12, Shamati #8

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